Pushing Past the Fear of Looking Stupid

John: Here we are with another episode of Green Apple Slices. Happy Monday, everybody. This is John Garrett coming to you. I’m here with Rachel Fisch, the head of Deloitte Bookkeeping Canada. So Rachel, how are you doing?

Rachel: I’m doing good. I wish my business cards say that. My business cards do not say that but I’ll go with that for sure.

John: I might’ve said it wrong. I say it wrong every week because I don’t even think you have a title. That’s what it is. It’s all make believe to me.

Rachel: Nobody knows that. It’s fine.

John: Right. I found an article that I thought was really great and something that I think we can all learn from is just it was titled Pushing Past the Fear of Looking Stupid.

Rachel: Right. That’s going to get you to open up the article. I love articles with interesting titles, right?

John: Absolutely, absolutely. I actually thought when I saw the headline is it’s too late.

Rachel: But let’s talk about everyone else.

John: No. The article is by Eric Torrance and he was in the Thin Difference blog and you can catch the link at greenapplepodcast.com. But yeah, but he intros it just by he creates his own acronym kind of like FOMO, the fear of missing out with his FOLS, the fear of looking stupid or also I guess the fear of looking like a fraud which I think is probably the bigger issue more than — because half the time, you don’t even know that you’re looking stupid until weeks later.

Rachel: The consistent word here between fear of looking stupid, fear of looking like a fraud, and fear of missing out is of course fear. And fear is a very strong motivator, emotion, all of those things. I think that if we could be maybe a little less fearful, we would probably see the effect of that in our lives both personally and professionally as well. Like the FOMO bit I get, I wish I was there but I think it’s kind of more important to make sure that you’re present wherever you are. So anyway, that’s my thing about the FOMO.

John: That’s for sure. I mean that’s absolutely — I mean you know it’s — we all look stupid doing something. Whatever you’re really good at — well, you’re really good at everything so that doesn’t count. Other people are really good at something and really stupid at other things. But the thing that you might be really good at, someone else feels that they’re really stupid at it and vice versa. If you feel like you’re real dumb at something, someone else is like, “Oh, I can do this in my sleep with one arm tied behind my back.”

Rachel: Well, fear is such a personal thing, right? Is that like where anybody’s individual strengths are or weaknesses or whatever like they’re completely unique to each person even if you look at people who look similar, their fears could be very not similar but I think number one of course is we all look stupid somewhere. There is not one of us anywhere in the entire world that has it put together. You’re all going to look stupid at some point in life, so just embrace it. Just embrace it.

John: Right, right, exactly or just say, “Yeah, but I’m really good at other things” and just remind yourself that you’re not stupid at everything. And I mean, I mean I remember when I was doing the Green Apple Podcast a couple of weeks ago and I was talking about the Lauren Thiel and she helped start a Beyoncé Dance Studio in Australia and I was like, “Oh, my, Lord. I would feel so stupid if I was in that” and yet she does that. I mean she nails it. I mean it’s unbelievable. Beyoncé wishes she could dance as well as Lauren. That’s how good it is.

Rachel: That seems moving.

John: And so but I mean that’s a perfect example of where somebody’s really, really good thing is someone else’s just awkward, “I feel really stupid doing this” but she owns it and I think that’s a part of it and the article talks about too is just no risk, no reward. I mean if you don’t throw yourself out there, then you’re not going to get any benefit from that and Lauren is an excellent example where she shares it with coworkers and her firm and actually did some dancing at one of their events and everybody knows her for that and she’s getting cool opportunities and staffed on cool projects because she’s not just a number and the game from that is huge.

Rachel: Right. So that goes back to like a Wayne Gretzky quote that’s popping in my head right now which is, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

John: That’s correct.

Rachel: Right? This Canadian quoting hockey quotes, imagine that.

John: Right.

Rachel: But it’s true. If you don’t take the shot, you won’t ever make the goal so take the shot. What is the worst that can happen?

John: Right, exactly. I mean there aren’t people being injured or things like that and it’s not even that crazy necessarily, you’re sharing a little bit of your hobbies and your passions. I think the biggest fear from talking to everyone is that, “Hey, I’m not actually really good at my hobby or my passion because if I was, I would probably do it professionally and so people are going to judge me that, hey, I’m not a very good musician or my art isn’t really that great” or whatever. And 99.9% of that is in your head. It’s only in your head.

Rachel: But then, who are you doing that hobby for? Are you doing it to have an audience? Are you doing it for somebody else? Are you doing it because it satisfies a piece of you, a piece of your life and your being that needs to be felt when you’re outside the office?

John: Right. I mean that’s an excellent point. And the other side is, somebody else judging you who has absolutely nothing, well, who are they? I mean at least I got something. I mean, gosh. I mean I wasn’t good at comedy just playing with it and still actually but especially early on, it was even worse.

Rachel: Oh, Lord.

John: But it’s just that’s how you get better is just keep doing it. And the last point he made was just life is short, live it well. I mean do what you want obviously but you can’t tell everyone.

Rachel: Nobody ever died because they were wishing that they were at the office more, right?

John: Yeah. I mean that’s for sure. That’s it everybody. There you go. Head out the rest of the week and why don’t you just look stupid every day? That’s my challenge. There we go.

Rachel: That’s awesome.

John: Check out greenapplepodcast.com. You could check a link there. And actually, if you’re listening in iTunes or Stitcher, if you could leave a quick review or a rating or a five-star rating, that’d be fantastic. That way then, people know what kind of show we got going on there. So that’s it.

Thanks so much, Rachel. Have a great rest of the week.

Rachel: I promise. I will.